


Ink Cafe

by luckystars1015



Series: Fluffy GinHiji [5]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Barista!Gintoki, Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, Oneshot, Pining, Tattoo Artist!Hijikata, Tattoo parlor AU, coffee shop AU, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28974816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckystars1015/pseuds/luckystars1015
Summary: Gintoki has the biggest crush on the hot tattoo artist next door and Kagura just bet him five sundaes to go ask him out.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Series: Fluffy GinHiji [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045224
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	Ink Cafe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheArmedLibrarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArmedLibrarian/gifts).



> Congratulations to TheArmedLibrarian for being the winner of my GinHiji Giveaway! This drabble is dedicated to you <3
> 
> I think I will host more drabble giveaways in the future on my twitter @luckystars1015 since this was so much fun to do!
> 
> *Note about Tattoos- so I know that in Japan, tattoos have a much more heavy cultural impact and regular people wouldn't get them on a whim, so for the purpose of this fic, the characters are in a universe where it's just more socially acceptable to have tattoos.

A constant groan could be heard from the front counter of a quaint little coffee shop. Shinpachi stopped his sweeping to diagnose the problem. “What’s going on? Is this coffee machine broken?”

Kagura rolled her eyes as she stuffed the display case with fresh muffins. “It’s Gin-chan. He chickened out on asking the hot tattoo artist’s number again. What a _wuss.”_ There was very little sympathy in her voice. 

_“Kagura!_ Who taught you such a word?!” Gintoki clutched his chest like a middle-aged lady at church. 

“Gin-chan, I’m sixteen. I’ve learned all the bad words already, no help from _you.”_

As the two started another one of their verbal riff raffs, no one could hear Shinpachi as he tried to calm the pair down. “I’m pretty sure wuss isn’t a bad word.”

“Gin-san, come on. You should be the bigger person here and let it go. You’re almost twice Kagura’s age,” Shinpachi tried to reason with his manager. 

Gintoki stopped and turned to his bespectacled coworker with a loud gasp. “I’m only twenty-seven!”

“Yet you still can’t ask Toshi-chan out,” Kagura taunted. Shinpachi sweatdropped. He was pretty sure that Kagura was trying to encourage Gintoki in her own way, even if it was hidden in her teasing. He’d only started working at Snack Smile. Apparently it had been a bar before the owner turned it into a coffee shop. Even though he’d only been here for a short time, he really enjoyed the atmosphere and work environment. It was like entering into a small family that welcomed him with open arms. He could tell that Gintoki and Kagura had known each other for years, acting more like siblings than anything else. 

_“‘Toshi-chan?!’_ When did you get on a first name basis with him?!”

Kagura smirked cheekily. “When he came in last week and I gave him the last batch of extra muffins for the day.”

“That’s it! I’m gonna go to his shop right after my shift ends and ask him out!” 

“If you don’t, you owe my five strawberry sundaes!” 

The two of them shook hands while maintaining sharp eye contact. “Bet!” 

—————-

Gintoki nervously played with the edge of his barista apron. He should have at least changed, but if he went back inside the coffee shop, Kagura would call him a chicken and he’d lose out on so many of his favorite sundaes. Plus, it had taken all of his courage to exit the door. 

The tattoo parlor had only opened a month ago. Its windows were tinted black, making it impossible to peer inside. It was a sharp contrast to the clear glass front of the coffee shop. 

Gintoki had always dreaded the morning shift before he’d met Hijikata. It was so difficult for him to get his ass up at the crack of dawn to open the shop. He owed the shop owner Otose a huge favor since he lived rent free above the place, so he was mostly doing it for her. But that day when Hijikata walked through the door, everything changed. 

Hijikata Toushiro was one _hot_ piece of ass. Clad in a black leather jacket and dark, ripped jeans, the man could make people swoon with a simple glance. Or maybe it was just Gintoki. Despite the fact that he was drop dead gorgeous, Hijikata had only one thing going against him. He had an indulgent love for mayo. 

Gintoki still remembered how his jaw dropped to the floor when he saw Hijikata take a seat at the furthest corner of the store and pull out a bottle of mayo and squeeze a heap into his black coffee. At first, Gintoki thought the man to be sleep deprived, drunk, or a combination of the two. But when he came back the next day to do the very same thing, he knew it wasn’t a fluke. 

Despite everything, Gintoki had a crush on this bewildering man. Don’t get him wrong, he was absolutely disgusted at first. But then that transformed to curiosity, and then Gintoki found himself waiting for the bells at the door to ring every day at 6AM so he could get his daily dose of Hijikata. 

Usually Gintoki would dive headfirst into asking people out on a date. That was what happened since he had no brain-to-mouth filter. He would see someone hot and ask them out on the spot, but something about Hijikata was different. A one night stand would do no good with him. He was worth more than that. 

The barista wished he could read Hijikata better. The man’s face was as readable as a rock. But just when Gintoki would call it quits on this juvenile crush, he would catch the ghost of a smile as Hijikata watched him and Kagura bicker like little kids. 

Suddenly, the door to the tattoo parlor opened. Lo and behold, it was Hijikata himself, all pretty, blue eyes and shiny, black hair. Gintoki was doomed before he even spoke. 

“Hey, did you wanna come in?”

“Uhhh-uuhh,” Gintoki smartly started. “Wait, you can see me through the door?”

“Yea, the windows are darkly tinted, but you can see the outside.”

Gintoki wished the ground would open and swallow him up, but it was a good sign that Hijikata hadn’t booted him off the property already, right? Gintoki finally walked through the threshold of the tattoo parlor he'd been imagining about for a month now. 

“Here,” Hijikata handed Gintoki a bottle of water. 

“Thanks, I’m not used to being the one being served drinks.” Gintoki took it graciously and opened it to quell his already parched throat. 

“You’re welcome. Kagura told me that you got thirsty around me.” 

Gintoki almost did a spit take, but managed to stop the action just in time. He ended up choking and seeing white spots for a hot second. 

“Looks like that went down the wrong pipe,” he said when he got his bearings back. Hijikata didn’t look like he was teasing Gintoki, so the man surmised that he was oblivious to the double entendre of Kagura’s comment. Darn that girl. 

  
  


“So did you need something from me?” Hijikata said.

“I want to… I want to,” Gintoki began, but the way Hijikata’s gaze fell onto him made it difficult to form a coherent thought. 

“I want a tattoo!” Gintoki finally blurted out. ‘Wait! No, I don’t!’ But it was already too late. 

Hijikata nodded and pointed Gintoki to sit in a chair. This was horrible. Gintoki was terrified of needles to the point where he would get knocked out just for a flu shot. But the alternative of admitting his mistake and embarrassing himself even more was much worse. 

“So what kind of tattoo were you thinking of getting today?”

Looked like Gintoki was full aboard this train. “I guess I’d like my name written in kanji.”

“Where would you like it to be?”

“What’s the least painful spot to get a tattoo on?”

Hijikata briefly looked up in consideration. “Basically the area with the least nerve endings. So the shoulders, or the ass.”

“Shoulder. Let’s go with my left shoulder,” Gintoki immediately answered so that the ass was thrown out for consideration. 

Hijikata acquiesced and took off his jacket to prepare. Both of his arms were covered in the most beautiful tattoo sleeves Gintoki had ever seen. He wiped at his mouth, hoping he wasn’t drooling already as his eyes ran up the other man’s biceps. 

The tattoo artist put his gloves on and looked at Gintoki's shirt. Since it was a shirt with long sleeves, it’d be too cumbersome to work with it on. 

“Can you take your shirt off?” In any other situation, Gintoki would have happily done as Hijikata asked. Good thing, Gintoki didn’t choose to have his ass tattooed today.

Hijikata grew quiet for a second when he was beholden with Gintoki’s topless figure. Gintoki grew nervous under the ravenette’s stare. “Is something wrong?” He looked down at his body to check. If there was another chocolate chip stuck to him again, he would just leave without putting his shirt back on. 

“N-no, it’s just… I wasn’t expecting you to be so muscular.”

Gintoki rubbed his neck in little embarrassment, missing the hint of a blush on Hijikata’s cheeks. “I have to work out a lot to make up for all the desserts I eat or else Kagura will tell me I’ll die early in a sugar-induced coma.” Hijikata chuckled and the sound made Gintoki’s heart flutter. 

Hijikata disinfected the area and pulled out his needle. He turned the machine on and Gintoki heard the low buzzing of the pen. The sugar addict clenched his eyes shut and pretended he was swimming in a pool of strawberry milk. 

After a long, withering moment of silence, he heard Hijikata turn off the machine. “You know, you don’t have to get a tattoo today. You can come back whenever you feel ready.”

Gintoki gave a nervous chuckle. “What gave me away?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the way you acted like a kid getting his first shot.” Hijikata gave Gintoki a disarming smile. “In my line of work, I can tell if a customer is isn’t ready for some ink. I don’t want to force you to get something you might regret down the line.”

Gintoki was touched. He was about to thank Hijikata for calling his bluff and saving him a night of crying in silence when he saw a particular tattoo on the inside of the ravenette’s wrist. 

Without thinking, Gintoki grabbed the man’s wrist and inspected it. He immediately recognized this design. It was a drawing he did probably two weeks ago. Gintoki had gotten into a habit of doodling things on Hijikata’s coffee cups. It was his subtle way of trying to get the man’s attention but until today, he never thought that the tattoo artist had noticed. 

This particular design was of a chibi version of Hijikata’s head in a mayo bottle. The whimsical design was the opposite of Hijikata’s whole mysterious and cool aesthetic. Gintoki was so surprised to find it inked on the man’s body. 

“This is the doodle I drew! I can’t believe you found it! I even drew it on the bottom of the coffee cup since I was too embarrassed to have you see it.”

Hijikata blushed but did not pull away. “I didn’t see it at first. But I keep all the coffee cups you give me since you always draw on them.” He pointed to a pyramid of coffee cups with Gintoki’s doodles dancing across them. How had Gintoki not noticed that coming in?

Gintoki turned back to face Hijikata and discovered that he was _way_ closer than the white-haired man remembered. It was probably because Gintoki was still holding onto Hijikata’s forearm. Being so close to Hijikata, he could finally see how the blush across his face was like a sakura tree blooming at the first sign of spring. It probably didn’t help the other man that Gintoki was completely shirtless either. 

_Oh._

Maybe Gintoki’s crush wasn’t as unrequited as he had thought. 

Gintoki's eyes couldn't help but fall to Hijikata’s lips. He drew his face closer, aching to get a taste of the shy tattoo artist. All this time, Gintoki pegged him to be a stone cold fox, but instead Hijikata was simply a tsundere. What else was the man keeping under wraps?

After a few deafening heartbeats, Gintoki finally gathered the courage to place his lips on Hijikata’s waiting ones. Their kiss was soft and tender like the smell of coffee clinging to Gintoki’s skin. 

The two men pulled apart, silent for a few moments afterwards. 

“Hey, you wanna grab a cup of coffee? I know a great place,” Hijikata offered, smiling like the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> So technically since Hijikata was the one to ask Gintoki out, Kagura won the bet xD


End file.
